In the past, information to be added to a preprinted form was required to be printed on the form by hand or typed into spaces provided on the form. Since personal computers came into widespread use, some forms have been provided in software. An example of this is income tax software, which allows a user to bring up forms which emulate preprinted government forms on a computer display, and then to enter the required information in designated spaces. The forms with the data which has been entered can then be printed on a computer printer.
However, the design of such form is required to be programmed, and it has been a tedious and sometimes difficult task to design the forms in software to exactly mimic the officially printed forms on the display, when printed.